Shutdown knocks out Merchant Marine game

The Mariners will not be in
uniform this weekend or as long as the political stalemate in
Washington continues as is.
Merchant Marine athletics photo

By Pat Coleman
D3sports.com

Although the Air Force-Navy game and the Army-Boston College
game will go on as scheduled this weekend, the Merchant Marine
Academy's game at RPI on Saturday has been called off because of
the government shutdown.

The Division I academies are under the Department of Defense,
while the Merchant Marine Academy is part of the Department of
Transportation, and that's why the Mariners are sidelined right
now.

"All the coaches are out furloughed and what's more all the
faculty is," Mariners coach Mike Toop said. "They're not even
having class at the academy. It's pretty disappointing."

Contacted with the help of Twitter because he couldn't check his
government voice mail or email, Toop said it wasn't feasible to
fund the trip to Troy, N.Y., out of non-appropriated funds because
none of the coaches are even on campus. "There's a bunch of red
tape that would need to happen. Because we’re furloughed we
couldn’t coach if we wanted to. We asked if we could
volunteer and we couldn’t even do that because we were told
it was against the law."

For now, the Mariners are doing captains' practices, without
coaches present. Toop is relying on his 21-man senior class to keep
the kids focused and on the field regularly. It's been a successful
season for Merchant Marine so far, as the team has gotten off to a
3-1 start and played credibly in a 24-8 loss to No. 7 Hobart last
week.

"The guys are really disappointed because they wanted to play
this week," Toop said. "I've got just a tremendous group of seniors
and I feel bad for them because I know this is their last
year."

The Coast Guard Academy will be playing this weekend, and at
home in that, as the Bears host Western New England. The Coast
Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security and Coast
Guard coaches also teach classes on campus, so they are deemed
essential personnel. There's more detail on Coast Guard in an AP story.

Officially termed postponed, the game could be made up Nov. 2,
as the teams have a mutual bye week. However, that is a final exam
week at Merchant Marine, a weekend on which the Mariners have
traditionally not scheduled a game.

Merchant Marine is scheduled to travel to the University of
Rochester next week.